


Memory and Shade

by heartofstanding



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: Thranduil visits Thorin during his captivity in Mirkwood.





	Memory and Shade

The wine is bitter and dry in his mouth.

He turns his eyes to the high vaulted ceiling of this hall, listening to the revelry below the dais where he sits. A feast for the stars, at time they dared not venture out at night to gaze at them. They remain caught by the fear of what lingers in the encroaching darkness. Surely there is something about that, something _wrong_ , something that has made the wine bitter, the celebrations hollow. Thranduil glances across the hall. The laughing faces, the overflowing wine and the bright fires seem grotesque to him.

But the flaw is not in the feasters. It is in him. He presses his back against the throne, feels the sturdiness of it against his back. Reminds himself of who he is and the darkness festering in the forest that he cannot defeat.

He looks down at his plate, the food stacked before him. He cannot remember asking for any of it. He is not hungry. He wants more wine, however sour it is, and he wants to pretend he is like he was before. But there is no wine in the pitcher, and he pushes it away.

Someone comes rushing up, to refill it, but Thranduil suddenly finds he has no patience. He cannot endure anymore of this, whatever _this_ is, and his people – what would they care if he went? He knows how they speak of him, _ill-tempered_ , and it would be better for them if he was not here, if there was no risk of him spoiling the feast for them.

He gets up, pushing back from his table, and someone – Pathorn, he thinks – makes a token gesture of an objection. 'My lord, you haven't eaten.'

Thranduil shakes him off with a few curt words, and he leaves the feast, walking through the empty halls, the sound of revelry echoing through the living stone. One hand presses against the stone. Cast in amber light from the high lamps, he half-expects it to be warm, but it is cold beneath his palms. He closes his eyes.

'Father?' Legolas.

He half-turns, and his son is standing there. There is a glimmer of annoyance in his face. Something has upset Legolas. He walks stiffly, but quickly, to Thranduil's side, and his lips spill more words than Thranduil cares to hear. He catches Tauriel's name, then, _a dwarf_ , and a thousand more words before they sort into something more understandable.

'They've been having actual _conversations_ ,' Legolas makes an indecipherable gesture, 'He _likes_ her, and for some inexplicable reason, _she_ likes _him_.'

'Who?'

Legolas scowls. 'One of the dwarves. Ugly – well, they're all ugly – young and beardless. Probably a liar like Oakenshield.'

'Thorin Oakenshield, a liar? That does not sound like him.' Thranduil halts, turns to face Legolas. 'Explain.'

Legolas grins, bares his teeth to the ceiling. 'The sword he had with him. Orcrist, the blade of Ecthelion of Gondolin. He said it was given to him by Lord Elrond.' He turns his grin at Thranduil with the expectation of fellow amusement.

'I do not believe Thorin Oakenshield is a liar,' Thranduil's voice is soft, cold, and he sees Legolas' grin falter. 'And if Lord Elrond gave it to him, then you have no right to claim it for yourself.'

'But—'

'Enough,' Thranduil holds up a hand, 'I do not care to hear your excuses. Go and join the feast, if you will, but leave me be.'

Legolas' lips press together in a thin line, a flash of anger in his eyes. Thranduil knows he is thinking of the day when Thranduil will be gone and he will be king, and how that day can't come fast enough. But at last, he turns on his heel and goes away, his feet mustering the closest thing to a stomp Thranduil has ever heard from an Elf.

Standing there, watching the play of shadows on the wall, Thranduil thinks of what Legolas said, of Tauriel and a dwarf talking, _liking_ each other, and he thinks that, perhaps, he should try something similar. Not with Tauriel's dwarf, but with another. Thorin. Once, before the dragon came, they were friendly enough, and Thranduil likes who he was himself before the dragon came, before the darkness came to the Greenwood.

He would like to be that person again.

+

His robe catches on the stone, a slither of embroidered silk that heralds his descent when his feet are silent. He does not go down to cells often, and the guards are surprised to see him, blustering through formalised greetings, exchanging worried looks to each other when they think he won't notice. He can hear the Forest River rushing far below them and starts, wonders when he had forgotten the river trapped in these halls.

But the guards do not give him reason to halt, and he passes down the stairs, fingers sliding against the cool walls. Sharp elven eyes catch sight of the dwarves in their cells, and he is lucky they are all asleep. He passes them all until he finds the cell Thorin is curled in and his fingers twist around the bars, the iron of them cold but gracefully forged all the same. He bites his lip and thinks – _he should speak_.

But then he thinks, _I should not_. Who is he to have come here, and what ill-formed hope drove him to this folly? He should go. He should throw himself against the darkness festering in these woods, though he is no match for it. Oh, he thinks he knows the name of the Necromancer, but no one has ever cared to ask him about this forest nor the shadow that dwells in its south.

Yet he is here, and his heart beats faster and faster, something warm and half-remembered, the taste of starlight in the air, and the nightingales of Melian. Before the darkness came. Before the breaking of an age, of two, and the slow defeat of his people. Under beech and elm, with autumn leaves woven in his crown, he has endured and now—

Now he does not know where to turn.

He sits on the stone stairs, looks down at the river, the waterfall flowing down to feed it, and gathers his cloak around himself. It seems to him that he is cold, so very cold, that nothing, no reversing of the days or defeat of the shadow, could save him from this.

It was absurd to think otherwise.

And who is he, to look for salvation and solace in one who has known greater tragedy, who has gone without the comforts Thranduil has? One who he has treated poorly, who he has not treated kindly with for as long as the dragon has nested in Erebor.

'You may as well speak if you're going to sit there.'

Thorin's voice comes as a surprise and Thranduil curses himself silently as he lifts his head, sees Thorin looking at him through the bars of his cell. He opens his mouth, shuts it, and tries to think of an excuse that doesn't sound like an excuse. He can't.

'We were friends once,' he says, voice soft, 'Do you remember that? You would come here in the summer, and we would talk for the entire night. You were always full of questions.'

Thorin shifts, sitting up. 'Aye, I remember. I also remember waiting for you to come to us in our exile, to bring food and drink and offer us shelter. You never did.'

Thranduil looks at Thorin in surprise, brow arching. 'I sent aid.'

It is a simple admission, one that has Thorin frowning, curling a hand around one of the bars. 'What?'

'I sent aid, but your grandfather refused it. Perhaps it would have been different if I had come myself, but we had our own battles to fight.'

'But—' Thorin cuts himself off, looks down at the ground beneath his feet. He is silent for a long moment, working out the answers to his own question of _why_. Thranduil can guess: Thrór was very proud, proud enough to take his family and followers into exile rather than taking them to his own kin. To accept help would mean he was weak and to accept help from an Elf, even an ally, would be unthinkable.

'You have been treated well, I hope.' Thranduil says, when the silence has gone on too long. His people are not cruel, but they can be unthinking and dangerous to those they consider their enemies.

'Well enough.' Thorin gives him a brief, thin smile. 'All these years, I thought the worst of you. I hated you for your betrayal. But I have hated you for nothing.' He laughs bitterly, turns away and covers his face. 'I wasted those years and for what?'

Thranduil says nothing. There is nothing he can think of saying that would make this better. It has been a long time, and nothing can change the past. He, perhaps, should have said nothing – should have let Thorin go on hating him in peace.

'Did you know how much I loved you, back then?' Thorin turns back to him, uncovers his face.

Thranduil remembers the past years, the child version of Thorin, impossibly small and stocky, beard barely there, following him around, trying to press gems and jewellery into his hands. The way his lip would wobble when Thrór or Thráin would send him away or when it was time for Thranduil to leave.

He remembers the adolescent, always seeking him out, asking his advice on a thousand and one things that Thorin should have been asking someone else. The shyness when he spoke, the eagerness to please – the way he'd always brightened when Thranduil spoke kindly to him. The adoration and devotion of a child, he had thought, then – a type of love, yes, but one that does not last, that one grows out of.

'I knew a little of it, I suppose,' Thranduil says at last, 'It was a long time ago and much as changed.'

'Not you,' Thorin's voice is insistent, both hands settling around the bars of his cell door. 'You have not changed at all.'

Thranduil smiles, but there is no joy in it. 'You have not seen me for many long years, Thorin. I have changed as the forest has changed.'

'I don't believe you,' Thorin says, his voice growing firmer, louder. Thranduil winces, fearing he will wake his companions. 'I don't.'

Thranduil shakes his head. 'The forest is poisoned. I can neither root it out nor heal it. And I—' He looks away, 'And I too am poisoned. I can hold it back for now, but not forever. In time—'

He cannot finish. He turns his eyes down to the river, that flows through these woods and into the Long Lake. If he spoke to a healer, if he turned to one of the Wise for advice, he is sure he would told to find a river that flowed to the Sea and follow it to those lands that never die. But he is not of one of the Wise, and he has loved these lands with their tall trees and their rivers to seek absolution in the Sea and the cry of the gulls.

'Why did you come here, then?' Thorin's voice is rough, holding perhaps a small kernel of hope, some faint glimmer of kindness unlooked for, unearned.

Thranduil shakes his head. 'Old memories, perhaps, old hopes. I do not know.' He stands slowly, shakes the dust from his robe. 'Forgive me. I should not have come.'

He turns to go, but Thorin's hand reaches out, fingers grazing the edge of his robe.

'Wait.' Thorin's fingers draw the cloth into a firmer grip, tug him back half a step. Thranduil stops, turns to him.

'I am waiting.'

Thorin swallows, fingers clenching and unclenching around the silvery fabric of Thranduil's robe. He looks down at the ground, scuffs his boots through the fine dust, then looks up at Thranduil with clear, hopeful eyes.

'Do you really believe that things are as dark as you say they are?'

Thranduil closes his eyes briefly. 'I have dwelt in the world for millennia, and through all my long years, I have seen the slow defeat of both our races. The world changes, and changes forever, Thorin, and for the Firstborn, our time grows ever shorter and ever darker.'

'But do you believe that all there is left is the defeat, and the darkness inescapable?'

Thranduil reaches down, peels Thorin's fingers from his robe and holds his hands. 'I don't know,' he says, softly, 'I wish I did.'

Thorin laughs softly, the sound bitter. 'Well,' he says, 'That makes two of us.'

After a moment's silence, Thorin's fingers tighten around Thranduil's. 'Will you—' He jerks his head at the cell-door, his eyes travelling to the cells his kin lie in. It is no great secret what he wants, the only mystery is why Thorin took so long to ask.

'Let you go free so you may face certain death?'

Thorin winces, his eyes screwing shut. He doesn't protest, but instead says, 'I could love you, again, you know.'

It is Thranduil's turn to wince, to hide his face. 'It would be a mistake,' he says, softly, 'You know that as well as I do.'

'I don't,' Thorin says, his voice so stubborn, so determined that Thranduil wants to laugh. He turns back, places his hand against Thorin's cheek, allows himself to feel the rough skin, the coarse beard for the first time, and can think of nothing to say.

Thorin stares back at him, challenging despite the softness in his eyes. 'Why did you come here?'

'A fool's hope,' Thranduil says, 'Nothing more.'

'I don't believe you.' Thorin's hands fastens around his wrists, holds him there. 'Do you even believe yourself?'

'I don't know.' 


End file.
